I am currently traveling and my car battery (4 years old) went completely dead. I belong to AAA so I used their battery replacement service. The battery they installed is their own brand 800 cca 110 reserve and comes with a 3 year roadside replacement if it dies.

Here is my question: I have device that plugs into my cigarette lighter that gives feedback on the charging system. It has 3 lights: red (battery bad) , yellow (fair) and Green(fully charged) , a 5 bar graph, and a digital readout with the voltage. When I test the battery in the morning - allowing the battery all night to rest - it shows 12.19 V , a yellow light with the bar graph showing 3 bars (a half charge). When I drive the car at highway speeds the charging system shows a strong 14.4, green light, and a full 5 bars. Is this something I should be concerned about? Are new batteries fully charged ? Is the cigarette lighter tester not reliable?

New batteries tend to be at fully charged when they are just made, but are designed to go down to half charge when they sit. The battery is a 12 volt system, with the car running, the alternator charges it up to 14 to 15 volts. This way it can run everything in the car. Your device is working properly and I would not worry too much about the system. From what you described, it appears everything is in line and working as it should.

Try to find a SOD chart for pb batts at various temps. 12.19 resting voltage may be only half charged.

Do yourself a favor. Next time you are out fishing and need a sinker... Then go get yourself a good load tester.

The cigarette lighter probe is basically indicating that:
There is nothing wrong with your battery or the charging system.

IMHO the battery you got from AAA is better than the one the factory provides.

Bob

Here is the end of the story. After they installed the battery I spent 3 weeks in South Carolina which is flat driving. I return to the hilly terrain of western Pa and suddenly my dashboard lights started flashing and smoke started coming from the battery side of the engine bay and the car completely died.

I lifted the hood and the positive battery cable had been sheared by the Water pump pulley. Apparently the guy who installed the battery forgot to put in a bracket and the battery slide backwards. Anyway I waited 3 hrs for triple A to arrive and they set up a splice so I could get the car home. Next day took it to one of their repair shops and and they replaced the cable and some vaccum line that had gotton burned. I was real lucky it did not start a fire.

The problem is now I am getting a funny noise when I start the car from the alternator area, could the battery short have damaged my alternator?

It absolutely could have damaged your alternator! You describe a direct short to ground through that pulley--something that could destroy any alternator while it was delivering power to the battery. You may very well need to replace the water pump next due to bearing damage (that power had to heat something up quickly).

The battery/alternator/ground/power cable form a system, and a short like that would compromise the complete charge path. All components involved in that short need to be examined for failures.